Hi there,
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
Thanks, Matthias
Hi,
On 22/02/11 15:40, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
AFAIK
there's no academic study which *specifically* compares usability in proprietary software against Free Software.
Usually, that FS involve more usability problems than proprietary software is the assumption that is used to bring forward other specific research aims.
If you want to have a quick look at one of these ref. They are the ones that are most typically cited (I think you can easily find them through scholar.google.com):
Andreasen, M. S., Nielsen, H., Schroder, S., & Stage, J. (2006). Usability in open source software development: opinions and practice. Information technology and control, 25(3A), 303–12.
Nichols, D., & Twidale, M. (2003). The Usability of Open Source Software. First Monday, 8(1). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1018/...
Nichols, D. M., & Twidale, M. B. (2006). Usability processes in open source projects. Software Process: Improvement and Practice, 11(2), 149-162. doi:10.1002/spip.256
Terry, M., Kay, M., & Lafreniere, B. (2010). Perceptions and practices of usability in the free/open source software (FoSS) community. In Proceedings of the 28th international conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 999-1008). Atlanta, Georgia, USA: ACM. doi:10.1145/1753326.1753476
Hi,
Am 22.02.2011 16:17, schrieb Giacomo Poderi:
Hi,
On 22/02/11 15:40, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
only a link: http://www.opensource-usability-labs.com/
may be, Björn B. knows something more about this topic ... (he's also based in Berlin)
kind regards Irmhild
The Berlin-based usability company relevantive did a comparative usability study of KDE and Windows XP back in 2003: https://www.relevantive.de/Linux-Usabilitystudie.html
Disclaimer: I currently intern at relevantive.
Hi,
Am 22.02.2011 16:17, schrieb Giacomo Poderi:
Hi,
On 22/02/11 15:40, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
only a link: http://www.opensource-usability-labs.com/
may be, Björn B. knows something more about this topic ... (he's also based in Berlin)
kind regards Irmhild
Discussion mailing list Discussion@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
On Tuesday 22 February 2011 14:40:45 Matthias Kirschner wrote:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
As I recall, Novell did extensive usability testing a few years ago and the results were widely reported and in the favour of FS DEs.
AFAIK Gnome and KDE haven't done extensive scientific usability studies for current versions. Perhaps the Gnome accessibility team have some data that you could use?
KDE used to do regular polling and testing of new icons using an online system, but that is very specific and probably not useful.
Also, GIMP has (or had) an excellent usability expert working on the new interface, and he did much blogging on the redesign (yet to be launched). That guy may also have done research for other FS projects.
Thanks,
Sam.
Hi Matthias,
On Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:40:45 +0100 Matthias Kirschner wrote:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
Some years ago Novell did some usability studies regarding GNOME and KDE. Afaik this studies doesn't compare the usability with other (proprietary) desktops but maybe you can use it to show that Free Software desktops care about usability and that they actively work on usability issues.
[1] http://www.betterdesktop.org/wiki/index.php?title=Main
best wishes, Björn
* Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org [2011-02-22 15:40:45 +0100]:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
Thanks to all for your references. Matthias
Hi,
On Tue, Feb 22, 2011 at 03:40:45PM +0100, Matthias Kirschner wrote:
for an interview I was asked if Free Software is less useable than non-free software. Do you have any good studies which I can include in the reply?
Often it is more usable. Look at this paper about blender UI [0], via [1].
Best wishes Michael
[0] http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2008/evolution_of_blenders_ui.pd... [1] http://lwn.net/Articles/428118/